“Oh, sire, it is to be hoped that you will still have years to devote to the happiness of your people, and—”
“Do you suppose I desire it?” exclaimed Frederick, interrupting him. “No, I am weary, and long to rest from the troubles and cares of life. You think I do not feel them, because I do not complain. But you must know that some things are only endurable when not complained of. My account with life is balanced, and, although it gave me some laurels, yet the thorns predominated, and there was scarcely a single rose among them. Be still! No complaints! But listen! I believe my end is approaching—already perhaps Death lies in wait at my door—and I have something to say to you. Madness and misrule will be the order of the day when I am gone, mistresses and favorites will reign, and hypocrites and impostors will practise iniquity under guise of piety. Well, this you cannot prevent; and if the Lord should see fit to let it come to pass, you must bear it as you best can. But when the spendthrifts attack the treasury, when they begin to squander the money I have saved with so much trouble, for the amelioration of the country, on their mistresses and favorites, you must not tolerate it. You must speak to the king’s conscience in my name, and endeavor to persuade him, with good and bad words, to consult his people’s interests, and not lavish on his favorites what belongs to the state. Will you promise to do this?”
“Yes. I promise your majesty that I will do so,” replied Herzberg, solemnly. “I swear that I will faithfully and fearlessly obey the commands of my great and beloved king; that I will repeat to your successor the words your majesty has just spoken, if occasion should require; and that I will do all that lies in my power to prevent the expenditure of the state treasure for any other purpose than that of the welfare of the people and country.”
“I thank you,” said the king; “you have relieved my mind of a great burden. Give me your hand, Herzberg, and let me thank you once more. You have been a faithful servant to your king, and you will continue to serve him when he has long since passed away. And now, farewell for the present, Herzberg; I desire to sleep a little. A cabinet meeting will be held here at eight o’clock this evening.”
“But, sire, would it not be better if your majesty rested to-day, or else called the meeting at once, in order that you might retire to your repose earlier?”
The king shrugged his shoulders. “There is no repose, except in the grave; and sleep is for the healthy only.” And, even after they had left him, the king remained sitting at his writing-desk, and arranged his papers, and wrote a letter to his sister, the Duchess of Braunschweig.
The two lackeys stood in the antechamber, awaiting the summons of the king’s bell, and whispering to each other that his majesty was again sitting up, and working at a very late hour, although his physician had expressly forbidden him to do so. And yet neither of them dared to enter and disturb him in his labors; they stood hesitating and casting anxious glances at the door.
But, behind this door, in the king’s room, two eyes were regarding him intently; these were the eyes of his greyhound, Alkmene. Twice had the animal already jumped up from its bed, ran to the king, and nestled caressingly at his side, and had then, when Frederick took no notice of it, hung its head and gone mournfully back to its cushion. It now raised its tapering head, and looked intelligently at the king, who sat writing at the table, his back turned toward the little dog. Suddenly it bounded across the room, sprang upon the king’s chair, laid its slender forefeet on its master’s shoulder, bent its graceful neck downward, snatched the king’s pen from his hand, and jumped down to the floor with it.
“Be quiet, Alkmene,” cried the king, without looking up from his work, in which he was entirely absorbed. “No nonsense, mademoiselle!” And the king took another pen from the stand.
Alkmene let the pen fall, and looked up at the king intently. When she saw that he continued writing, she uttered a low, plaintive whine. With one bound she was again on the back of the king’s chair. Supporting her feet on his shoulder, she snatched the pen from his hand a second time, and jumped down with it. This time she did not let the pen fall, but held it in her mouth, and remained near the king’s chair, looking up to him with her sparkling eyes.
Frederick looked down from his work at the little animal, and a smile flitted over his features.
“Really,” said he, in a low voice, “I believe Alkmene wishes to remind me that it is time to go to bed. Well, come here, mademoiselle, I will grant your desire!”
As if understanding her master’s words, Alkmene barked joyously, and jumped into the king’s lap. The king pressed the little greyhound to his breast, and caressed it tenderly. “My friends have not all deserted me,” he murmured. “I shall probably have a smiling heir, but, when my body is carried to the grave, my dog at least will remain there to weep over me.”
He pressed the greyhound closer to his breast; deep silence reigned in the room. The wind howled dismally through the trees in the garden; a sudden blast dashed some fallen twigs against the low window, in front of which Frederick worked, and it sounded as if ghostly hands were knocking there. The wind whispered and murmured as if the voices of the night and the spirits of the flowers and the trees wished to bring the king a greeting.
Suddenly Alkmene uttered a long, distressful howl, and ran to the door, and scratched and whined until the servants took heart and entered the room.
The king lay groaning in his arm-chair, his eyes glazed, and blood flowing from his pale lips. His physician and a surgeon were summoned at once, and the king was bled and his forehead rubbed with strengthening salts. He awoke once more to life and its torments; and for a few weeks the heroic mind conquered death and bodily decrepitude. But the ride on Condé on the fourth of July was nevertheless his last. After that day Frederick never left his “dark house.”
When the king of the desert, when the lion feels that his end is approaching, he goes to the forest, seeks the densest jungle and profoundest solitude, and lies down to die. Nature has ordained that no one shall desecrate by his presence the last death-agony of the king of the desert.
His Sans-Souci was the great king’s holy and solitary retreat; and there it was that the hero and king breathed his last sigh on earth, without murmur or complaint.
He died on the morning of the 17th August, in the year 1786.
A great man had ceased to live. There lay the inanimate form of him who had been called King Frederick the Second. But a star arose in the heavens, and wise men gave it the name Frederick’s Honor. The same star still shines in the firmament, and seems to greet us and Prussia: Frederick’s Honor!
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
AFTER THE KING’S DEATH.
“The king is dead! Frederick the Second is no more! I come, your majesty, to bring you this sad intelligence!”
These were the words with which the minister Herzberg, accompanied by the valet Rietz, walked up to the bed of the prince royal, Frederick William, on the night of the seventeenth of August, and aroused him from his slumber.
“What is it? Who speaks to me?” asked the prince royal, rising in bed, and staring at the two men who stood before him—the one with a sad, the other with a joyful expression of countenance.
“I ventured to speak to your majesty,” answered Herzberg; “I, the former minister of King Frederick